Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu:

Growing Old in India: Voices Reveal, Statistics Speak’, a book authored by professor Ashish Bose and Mala Kapur Shankhardass, PhD was launched at a programme on March 9.

Dr Wasim Zaman, director of United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Country Technical Services Team (CST) for South and West Asia, chaired the ceremony. Dr Zaman emphasised that the population of ageing was an issue that needed attention not just in South Asia but all over the world. Global concern for the elderly was raised in the First World Assembly on Ageing at Vienna in 1982 followed by several national and international conferences including the Second World Assembly on Ageing at Madrid in 2002.

It projected that by the year 2020, there would be twice as many people over 60 in the less developed regions compared to the developed world with Asia containing over 80 per cent of the estimated 700 million elderly people in the developing world.

This book focuses on this issue in India but covers certain issues and concerns significant for all of South Asia. The authors have used the voices of the older people, government officials, United Nations representatives, voluntary sector workers and a whole range of statistics as a part of research, projections from census and other data sources to provide an insight to the experience of growing old in a country with an increasing ageing population, limited social security benefits and changing social structure.

The book has many firsts, claimed Shankhardass, “It brings together various disciplines and thoughts.” The authors have dealt with the issue from various points of view ranging from demographic, sociological, gerontological to policy analyses.”

UNFPA provided financial support for conducting of this research in India for this book. Published by BR Publishing Corporation, New Delhi, India, the authors stated that this work was one of a kind. “The index that I developed is of particular interest,” said Ashish Bose, co-author.

“It has a ‘How Fit’ and health which is the single most important problem confronted by the elderly. IT also has a transcendental index. Emotional poverty creates mental distress. The world in the 21st Century is dominated by old people. To keep fit one must practice yoga and meditation. It is the low-cost most effective method against ageing and it can’t be done in old age.”